Who shouldn't watch the Watchmen

I haven't seen Watchmen yet. It's likely that I'll wait until it comes out on DVD, not because of anything to do with the movie but because I just don't like movies in theaters. The husband often takes the kids to the theater to see comic-oriented movies when they come out, but obviously did not do so this time. (The fourteen-year-old has skimmed over our Watchmen trade, but of course it's off-limits to the ten-year-old.) I was a bit surprised when I read about parents bringing their young children to see it, but figured they were the same sort of parents who brought their five-year-olds to see the latest Saw.

But then I'm a comic fan. I've read Watchmen. I've read a lot of comics, and I wouldn't take my young kids to see Watchmen any more than I'd take them to see a film adaptation of Omaha the Cat Dancer.

Anyway. I have a friend, an excellent mother who tries hard to make good parenting choices for her kids, who was at the theater with her family. They were choosing a movie to see. She's not a comic book person at all, but looked at the various choices and sort of remembered that Watchmen looked interesting from the commercials. They'd seen comic book movies before. The R rating was a concern, but there are plenty of R-rated movies that are fine for kids, especially if their parents are with them, and she figured this would be one of those. Superheroes, right? Ordinarily she'd have done more research, but there they were at the theater and they had to pick something. Watchmen it was.

Long story short, it was not what she expected, and they left. She doesn't blame the theater or the movie company or anything, and she acknowledges that it was a bad call on her part. She's a good parent, one of the best I know, but in this instance she made the wrong decision. It happens to us all.

And now I'm wondering about all those other parents I've read about who brought their kids--the ones I assumed just didn't care. How many of them simply hadn't done the research? How many had assumed that since it was a superhero movie, it couldn't be that bad?

(I do find it interesting that so many people, parents and others, still think of comic books as a kids' genre when so few actual kids read them, at least compared with the number of teens and young adults who do.)